Let me start out by saying I don't like jl audio, My wardens and my old tc sounds lms 5400 18" will blow anything they have out of the water. That being said. I do own an old 13w7 that has been sitting in my basement for years. I bought it for 50 bucks knowing that it had a noise and sounds blown. I decided to either trash it or recone it. the coils check out at 1.4 and 1.5. I hooked it up to my sundown 1200. It has a funny noise thats kind of loud. It basically sounds blown. I called jl audio and asked a "tech expert" to see what they would say. He said the speaker is fine. Is your box in good shape. I said its not the box 1" mdf tuned to 32. in really good shape. He said it has to be your amp. "what kind of amp are you using"? I said a sundown 1200. he said he's been in car audio for 25 years and has never heard of sundown. He said if you're going to buy a 1100 dollar sub, use an equal quality amp. I said I'm not a huge fan of sundown, but as far as quality, you guys are on par with pyramid and pyle. If you look on craigslist or ebay. if you see a used w7, chances are its blown. Jl's quality is for sh!t. where do these idiots get off acting like that? Anyways, is it possible to have coils check out and still be blown? I've never seen it before.
Does it sound like a 12 gauge wire hitting the back of the cone as it beats? My buddy has a solo-baric that makes that noise when turned up high, but plays fine otherwise.
No, its kind of a buzzing noise. sounds like coil rub to me. I think its on its way to the trash. I'm not paying those jackasses 350 to recone this piece of junk. would be lucky to break even on it after I sell it.
If you knew how to set up your system properly and not clip the shiit out of it you wouldn't have this problem...You should've stuck with quality JL instead of mixing crap with them....
Let me start out by saying I don't like jl audio, My wardens and my old tc sounds lms 5400 18" will blow anything they have out of the water.
Hating JL is a personal opinion, and has nothing objective to do with this. Your TC and Warden are SPL subs. JL makes SQ products. Apples and oranges, which explains why your subs are louder. Also, comparing a (damaged) 13" sub to an 18" sub also negates any validity to your argument.
It is possible to have a DCR that looks normal, and have damage to the driver, yes. DCR is only one measure of the driver. It's also possible that all you're hearing is the mechanical noise of the driver motor. Some subs, particularly with long throws, have rather noisy motors. That said, at moderate to high output, to me, most subs sound less than stellar when you have your head next to them. They tend to sound much better when you have them in a trunk.
I've been in car audio for over 20 years as well, and until a year ago, I hadn't really heard much about Sundown either, but that said, they do use MilSpec components throughout the amps, and they are very well made. I'd say they are on par with the old Orion amplifiers of the early 90s for their time. Trying to diagnose damage to a sub over the phone seems a bit silly to begin with, however, and JL typically won't even talk about their gear with someone unless they see a receipt from an authorized dealer in my experience.
My understanding is that they won't cover a W7 unless it was installed by an authorized shop, where it was purchased.
fake Canaan, you're an idiot. hard for me to clip a sub to death when i bought it 5 years ago and never hooked it up. i suppose it was clipped sitting in a box in my basement. usually you have to have power on them to clip them. but you're right. glass, i love their w6's. had a pair for years. just didnt set well with me the way their tech guy talked. his cocky attitude was upsetting. i know its two different kinds of subs. but whether it be sq or spl, their subs are not as good as he acted, nor bullet proof like he suggested. i was really talking about their customer service. i have no idea where it was bought. i gave a dude 50 for it. he said it was blown. stuck it down in the basement. never messed with it until today. i didnt turn it up loud at all. was hardly moving. extremely audible noise though. psi can't recone the 13w7s. 3 1/2 coils. they dont carry them. they can the 12w7s but not the 13.
new research suggests that the resonant frequency in a basement cabinet along with unavoidable static electricity can cause irreversible and catastrophic damage to the best of drivers. Sorry.
you forgot to mention solar flare interaction with the ionosphere creating a latent charge, thus polarizing the coil causing it to float into constant clip... :-P
hope you did not look at it funny, if you did it could have started a mini black hole inside the motor causing the coil to rub. what ever you do don't look at them funny.
Yeah, so if you HAVE looked at it funny, DONT recone it, because you could release the black hole and it will surely find it's way to another sorry sucker's JL
it could be the spiders are loose as well, i had that happen with a w6.. just used gorilla glue and let it dry for a few days and slowly played it and it was fine.. but you dont need to trash it, i know there has to be someone on a forum wanting that motor to build something crazy out of it. i recently just say a 13w7 motor used with a tc cone and soft parts and the sub looked pretty good
i'll have to disagree with 1/2 of that statement, Gdub. it has found it's way into many HT setups as well as trunks. as for the rest of your post, spot on as usual.
I can understand being upset with some cocky half-wit on tech support. I know I've encountered that enough times, myself.
That said, what sort of noise exactly are you hearing? The motor does make a mechanical sort of noise, and it's very audible at close range. This could be what you har. It could be damage as well. Without hearing it myself, I can't say for sure either way. Your best bet is to find a JL dealer near by, and take the sub in. Listen to one of theirs on display. If it doesn't sound like yours, tell tehm you're having problems with your sub, and ask an installer to take a look at it.
The sub is dual 1.5 ohm so you're either running it at 3 ohm or 0.75 to your amp. Either way you're either not getting much power to the sub, or possibly sending it a little dirty power with the sundown amp. That's one the draw backs IMO is how the w7 subs are designed to run. I feel it was a marketing aspect to get people to run their regulated amps since its not easy to feed a sub a large amount of power at 3 ohm. I wouldn't say JL sucks, I believe every brand out there has its place.
i have it wired to 3 ohm. i can't bring myself to ever run amps under 1. i'm over protective of my audio gear. i would say its getting roughly 6 to 700. i put it in the trunk closed it up went for a drive and it sounds like something is slapping around. it's as loud as the music. if you've ever heard one played free air with the mounting rings not on it. or a sub with the surround coming apart. in all my years, i've never blown a sub, so i'm a bit of a novice as to what it sounds like. i don't think it's the lead slapping. it does it with virtually no excursion.
touche'..... wait i retract my touche'. a discussion about a subwoofer in a subwoofer forum... retarded. way to go bud, you've hit the nail on the head. when did this forum get filled with you post wh*re trolls? i don't have any idea what the noise is nor do i care.... but i need another hit on my post count... so i'll just put the smartest thing i can think of. "this is retarded" you and fake canaan should pull each others puds for a bit, then come back.
Sounds like the sub needs repair and IMO it isnt worth getting fixed, not for the $350 or whatever JL wants to fix it. You could buy a new sub for that much.
I wonder what was done to it. I remember having a couple w7's last year and although they were not the 13's i will tell you i beat the living piss out of a ten. I even had it pretty smelly a couple times when i believe i had my subsonic set to low. But anyway this thing pounded till the day i sold it for more then i paid for for it. This was constant abuse trying to keep up with a lot of pro audio speakers for an entire summer.
Doesn't make sense to me either. Going to run it by a jl dealer here in indy when I get off work. I'm sure they'll just say "its blown, did you get it from us" no... well you're screwed.
It definitely sucks that jl charges so much to rebuild. But at least jl will rebuild them. A local shop in my area called Rockford to see how much to rebuild one of the 15 inch t1 or t2's. I don't remember which one, and they said they don't rebuild them.
walk in to the dealer, tell them when you bought your car, the previous owner told you he'd gotten the sub at their shop. tell the store person that it's been acting up.
Even the dealers will not help with out a reciet.. Pick an audio shop that went out of buisness around you that sold jl, Next make a reciet from said shop, Submit as your own...They will not be able to verify or deney... Also, Did you check the surround carfully? May be dry rot. JL has that problem..push down around the rubber and look for tears..
how big is the gap? if you know the id an od of the gap mike ankey could recone it for you. as far as the 5400 being a spl sub hahahaha sorry glass but i must laught at you on that one. the 5400 is probally top 5 best subs ever built for either sq or spl. the 5200 is more spl orientatted. if its buzzing prlly coil rub. either from too much power and the coil just got burnt up or coil rock and its outta place and rubbing. or could be a broken lead wire like my sig was.
Even the dealers will not help with out a reciet.. Pick an audio shop that went out of buisness around you that sold jl, Next make a reciet from said shop, Submit as your own...They will not be able to verify or deney... Also, Did you check the surround carfully? May be dry rot. JL has that problem..push down around the rubber and look for tears..
Laugh if you like, Dustin. I don't memorize every model of every sub ever made. I have much better things to do with my time, and TC sounds has made a crapload of speakers considering they were one of the 3 or so speaker houses who made speakers for the majority of audio companies selling speakers for quite some time. This still doesn't negate my argument that comparing two 18+" subs that are functioning to a damaged 13" sub and saying his other two "blew it away" is an invalid statement. The W7 subs are good subs, and designed to be a high excursion, highly linear SQ sub. They were never designed purely for peak output. He also stated that he was running 700 watts to teh sub which would rule out damage from too much power, unless it was damaged by the prior owner. "Too much power" is very, very rarely ever teh cause of damage to a sub. Much more often it's damaged by unloading from improper enclosure design and system setup, or by amplifier clipping from improper system setup again, or from lack of a sufficient charging system.